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    <title>TClass - A Supervised Learner for Temporal Classification</title>
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    <h1>TClass - FAQ</h1>

    <h2>What is TClass?</h2>

    <p>TClass is a supervised learner for multivariate time
    series.</p> 
	
	<p>A supervised learner is a computer program that learns by
	presentation of classified examples. For example, a supervised
	learner could learn to tell different fruit, if given lots of
	examples of different fruit and told what kind of fruits there
	are (like: "Here's a banana: it's boomerang-shaped, smooth and
	yellow", and "Here's an orange: it's round, dimpled and
	orange" and so on). Eventually the computer "learns" and you
	can ask questions like: "There's a fruit here, that's green
	and round with smooth skin -- what is it?"

      </p>
	
	<p>Just to clarify, this is called <i>supervised</i> learning
	because the learner is told what the types of fruit are. An
	<i>unsupervised</i> learner would be where you point the
	learner at a fruit bowl and say "There's a fruit bowl: you
	figure out what the different types of fruit are."</p>
	
      <p>Supervised learning is hardly new. In fact a whole area,
	called <a href="http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Artificial_Intelligence/Machine_Learning/">machine learning</a>, has developed that studies supervised
	learners. Even before machine learning, statisticians were
	interested in classification.  </p>
	
	<p>What's different about <i>TClass</i> is that learns not
	from an attribute-value representation (like: colour is red,
	shape is round, etc) but from time series data. A time series
	is a value that varies over time. For example, if you log the
	temperature in your office every half an hour, then this is a
	time series. A multivariate time series is a time series that
	has more than one measurement -- e.g. if you logged
	temperature, humidity and pressure. 
	</p><p>
	 That's fine -- but what does this have to do with
	  classification problems -- like the fruit one above? 
	</p>
	<p>
	  Humans frequently classify time series. For example, speech
	  can be characterised as a multivariate time series. TClass
	  can be set up to recognise individual words. There are many
	  other domains with time series -- a few of which are below. 


	</p>
	
	<h2>What domains has TClass been used on?</h2>
	
	<p>TClass has been used on several real-world and artificial domains. 
	These include: 
	</p><ul>
		<li><b>ECG Classification: </b> Electrocardiographs are measurements
		of the heart's electrical signals. Cardiologists can often diagnose
		patients' heart problems by examining these recordings. The diagnosis
		can be used to label examples (e.g. healthy or sick), which then provide the 
		training examples for TClass. When 
		used with TClass, a single heartbeat is analysed, and diagnosed, based on
		training examples provided by the experts. </li>
		
		<li><b>Sign recognition: </b> Signs from Auslan were recorded using high-tech
		gloves that measured finger bends, each hand's position and its orientation.
		Each glove records the measurements about 100 times a second. These signs are 
		labelled by their type and provided as examples. The computer can then produce 
		a classifier to label unseen signs. 
		
	
		</li>
		
		
		
	</ul><p></p>
      
	<h2>What platforms does TClass run on?</h2>
	
	<p>TClass runs on any platform that supports Java 2.</p>

	<h2>What license is it released under?</h2>

	TClass is released under the <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl.html">Gnu 
General Public License</a>. 
	<p>
	
	</p>

    <hr>
    <address><a href="mailto:waleed@mozart.orchestra.cse.unsw.EDU.AU">Mohammed 
Waleed Kadous</a></address><!-- Created: Tue Feb 26 12:47:46 EST 2002 -->
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Last modified: Thu May  1 16:09:03 EST 2003
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